Sakineh Ashtiani, German Journalists Possibly Free Tonight
Just received notice from the International Committee Against Stoning (ICAS), a human rights organization that has spearheaded the international campaign to free a 43-year-old mother of two sentenced to death in Iran for adultery, that she has been released. The Huffington Post has this report as well. However, other reports suggest that her release may be conditional, and the Islamic Republic may be planning to re-incarcerate her after Christmas.
Similarly, the ICAS reports that two German journalists, a reporter and a photographer for the tabloid Bild am Sontagg, who have been held since October, have been released. Then again, I am reading other reports from recent days that the Islamic Republic is merely “considering” releasing them, and at this hour do not see any definitive reports from major news sources that they are free.
The reporter and photographer traveled to Iran to interview the condemned woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, and her son Sajad Ghaderzadeh, a 22-year-old bus driver who put his life on the line to plea for his mother’s life. according to some reports this young man, who was also detained by the regime, has been tortured for taking a stand. Also incarcerated is this woman’s attorney.
It is impossible to know what exactly is going on at this hour, given the conflicting reports. Mina Ahadi, spokeswoman for the ICAS, which over many months spearheaded the campaign to free Ashtiani, is ebullient tonight and convinced she and all involved in the case have been freed. Ms. Ahadi has been a tireless advocate for all of the hostages in the case. Carla Bruni (pictured above), wife of French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in lending her name and her plea to free Ashtiani, also helped to spotlight the case internationally.
In recent days, German politicians have traveled to Tehran behind-the-scenes, presumably to attempt to secure the journalists’ safe release. I wrote about this clandestine shuttle diplomacy yesterday; you can read about it here. In my piece, I mentioned that German activists have been considering spearheading an international campaign to free the journalists akin to the one to free Ashtiani.
If the parties in Ashtiani’s case, as well as the journalists, are indeed released, it will be intriguing to try and unpack which approach worked: confrontational public shaming of the regime or behind-the scenes diplomacy. My hunch is it will have been the combination.
This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on December 9, 2010 at 9:53 pm and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: human-rights, Iran, journalism, journalist. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>